I am the president of Metis Strategy, a CIO advisory firm that I founded in 2001. I have advised many of the best chief information officers at multi-billion dollar corporations in the United States and abroad. I've written for the Wall Street Journal, CIO Magazine, CIO Insight, Information Week and several other periodicals. I am also the author of Implementing World Class IT Strategy: How IT Can Drive Organizational Innovation (Wiley Press, September 2014) and of World Class IT: Why Businesses Succeed When IT Triumphs (Wiley Press, December 2009), a book on leading IT practices that has sold over 12,000 copies around the world. Since 2008, I have moderated a widely listened to podcast entitled “The Forum on World Class IT,” which features a wide array of IT thought-leaders, and is available at www.forumonworldclassit.com on a biweekly basis. I have been the keynote speaker at a host of corporate conferences and universities in the US, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Spain, China, India, Australia, and Saudi Arabia. You can reach me at peter.high [at] metisstrategy.com or on Twitter @WorldClassIT

Reflections on the Greatest Free Product Endorsement Ever

With the election in our rear view mirror, it is interesting to think about all that has come to pass over the last four years. Beyond the politics, however, I am reminded of how President Obama’s first election brought about perhaps the greatest product endorsement in history. Though Presidents are not supposed to endorse one product or company over another or appear in advertisements for any company, on January 7, 2009, days before his inauguration and in the face of having to give up his personal phone for security reasons as his predecessors had done, the President-elect said, “I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry. They’re going to pry it out of my hands.” This was a product that was of such great use to him, and represented his connection to the life he was leaving, that he would force his Executive Office of the President (EOP) to change protocol so that he could keep his cherished device. This is the sort of endorsement that companies dream about.

President Barack Obama (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The truth is, as of early 2009, many business executives agreed that their BlackBerries were indispensable. RIM had done a wonderful job of securing their devices, making them business-ready, while also focusing on making BlackBerry the premier communication device. The keyboard made it ideal for emails and text messages in addition to being a robust phone. Moreover, these devices were available through a variety of carriers, so companies did not necessarily need to change plans in order to purchase the latest and greatest devices from RIM.

On June 28, 2007, around the time Obama was crisscrossing the nation trying to secure the Democratic nomination, a different kind of phone was released with quite a hefty marketing budget, as Apple released its first iPhone. Research in Motion (RIM – the maker of the BlackBerry) dismissed this new entity as a non-rival, as the iPhone was a personal device, and not something a serious businessman or businesswomen would deign to use for work purposes, to say nothing of a president. The iPhone had all kinds of “weaknesses”. In addition to the lack of a “real” keyboard, it was only available through one carrier, and a carrier that did not have the reputation for reliable service, especially in key business communities like New York and San Francisco. Moreover, what CIO would ever let the iPhone access the company’s most sensitive data? What RIM did not realize was that this was the tipping point of what has come to be referred to as consumerization of IT.

Though CIOs feared what a device like this would mean in terms of securing the network of the company, the truth is it was often they who were the first to play around with iPhone, as CIOs are always interested in the newest technology toy to play around with. The smart ones realized that it was so easy to use that it was a way to start a conversation with the rest of the organization. If Luddite CEOs could grasp the power of using apps for everything from seeing their appointments for the day, to checking into flights, to reading news and analyst reports, they might see an application of the device to their company.

Add to it that the digital natives that make up the generation Y community, who were at the junior ranks of these companies, were buying iPhones by the bucket load; these devices were being brought into the office whether the CIO or Chief Information Security Officer said so or not. RIM did not realize that it needed to keep the great things that made it successful, but think more like a hybrid, asking, “how can we make our products both useful and secure while also being fun to use?”

Apple’s advantage was its ecosystem. Everyone with an iPod or an iTunes account became logical consumer of the iPhone. Fostering the explosion of apps to be used through the iPhone made the device that much more sticky. As a result, people felt the need to buy the iPhone and use it even if they had a company issued BlackBerry.

RIM has released many Blackberries in the interim, but lost market share with each step. Perhaps recognizing that they needed to develop smart devices that were for work and for play, they named their tablet computer the PlayBook. Of course, when it was released on April 19 of 2011, Apple’s iPad already had a dominant position in the tablet space.

On June 12, 2009, RIM’s stock was at $92.80. Yesterday, it closed at $8.23. There is a lot of pressure on the company to produce with the BlackBerry 10, which is due out in early 2013. It may well be too little, too late. However, on the bright side, at least the once and future President still uses a BlackBerry.

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